


a love that won't sit still

by fimbulvetr



Category: A3! (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, F/M, Gen, Growing Up Together, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2019-12-30 14:52:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18317507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fimbulvetr/pseuds/fimbulvetr
Summary: The one where Sakyo and Izumi grow up as next door neighbours.





	1. 13 & 17

**Author's Note:**

> their age difference is about 3-4 years here, don't think too hard about it (i sure didn't)

Sakyo talks to the girl next door a few days after his 17th birthday.

It’s just past sundown on a school night, and there’s a giant tear in his uniform jacket from where it snagged on barbed wire earlier. Sakyo is sitting on the steps outside his apartment building, looking up at the windows. The lights aren’t on upstairs, which means his mother isn’t home yet, and probably won’t be for some time. He’s in no hurry to go up, so he stays there, looking and feeling like what he’s sure is the biggest failure alive. 

After a while, he notices that someone’s watching him. It’s not a malicious gaze, or even a judgmental one—those are the two ways people tend to look at him these days, but he can’t fault them for that.

The girl from next door is up on her balcony, staring down at him. Tachibana Izumi. She’s 12 this year, maybe 13, with big fearless brown eyes. They used to play together—as much as two kids who had nothing in common other than geography could, anyway. There were a few weeks where they’d play at her father’s theatre, running underfoot of the crew and actors.

But not long after that, his own father left the picture and everything had gotten harder, and at some point he’d had to stop being a kid.

“What are you looking at?” Sakyo calls up at her. He sounds gruffer than he intends, but spend enough time in bad company and you start to forget what you sound like when they’re not around.

“I’m looking at you!” Izumi shouts back, quite undaunted. “Wait a minute, I’ll come down!”

She doesn’t wait for a response before dashing off. He hadn’t planned on going anywhere, so he sits and waits. A few moments later, the door to the apartment building opens. Izumi sits down next to him, leaving a respectable distance.

“What are you doing out here, Sa—Um, Furuichi-san?”

He arches an eyebrow. “Are you too old for _oniichan_ , now?”

The girl’s cheeks colour pink, her arms folding defiantly.

“I’m a first year in middle school,” she informs him, probably trying for haughty, but she’s not a good actor. “ _And_ the future president of the Curry Research Society.”

Sakyo scoffs. “That’s an official club?”

“It will be,” she replies, so earnest he almost has to believe it. “—But you didn’t answer my question.”

“Well spotted.” That earns him a dubious squint, to which he shrugs. “I don’t want to. That’s it.”

Izumi seems to consider that for a moment, then gestures at the jacket on his lap.

"So... You're not hiding that from auntie?"

“She’s not home.”

“That’s not an answer either, though,” the girl points out. Sakyo can’t tell if she’s observant, too stubborn for her own good, or some combination of the two.

Then, before he can stop her, she takes the torn jacket and holds it up by the shoulders.

“What do you think you’re—”

“I bet we can fix it!” Izumi announces brightly, eyes shining. She shoves the jacket back to him. Sakyo lets it drop back into his lap, momentarily speechless. He’s not often faced with blind optimism, so he’s not really sure how to react to it.

He settles for echoing “‘We’?” which makes her fluster a little, looking down, but she recovers quickly.

“I have a sewing kit in my room,” she explains. “The rip isn’t as bad as it looks… Maybe.”

There’s something he finds inexplicably funny about the way she adds the last part. To his own surprise, he finds himself fighting back a smile, and has to disguise it by turning his face away.

“… Well, why not,” he says. “Do you know how to sew?”

“Sort of? … Well… We can figure it out, right?”

He can’t help it this time, and the laugh comes out as … a genuine laugh.

“Suppose it can’t get much worse than how it already is,” he concedes, though he doesn’t fully believe the words he’s saying. But it’s worth it for her reaction, the enthusiastic way she practically bounces back up to her feet.

Sakyo follows her as she ushers him into the building, and up the stairs to their floor, and into the unlocked apartment next to his own.

As they take off their shoes, Izumi calls out, “Mama, I brought Sakyo-oniichan over!” which makes him almost trip in the genkan.

“Is he staying for dinner?” her mother calls back.

Before he can reply with a “No, auntie,” she’s answering for him: “Yes!”

“I’m not staying for dinner, why did you say that,” he growls.

“Because you always eat really late. Besides, we’re having green curry, and papa’s eating at the theatre tonight so there’ll be extra anyway. —Ah, come on, my room’s this way.”

His shoulders lower. He’s being bulldozed by a preteen and he’s just going to accept it, because despite the cacophony of protests inside his head, dinner doesn’t really sound like an unpleasant idea. He grumbles a “Pardon the intrusion,” and follows her, the jacket clutched in his hand almost like an afterthought, trailing on the ground.

 

Sakyo insists on leaving the door of her room open for propriety’s sake, which she gives him an odd look for. It takes a few minutes of her scrambling around her room to _find_ the sewing kit, and wastes another good five or so minutes trying to thread a needle until he gets fed up and does it for her. He pricks himself in the process, which she thankfully doesn’t notice.

They take turns struggling to make a neat stitch, holding the torn parts of the fabric together, and the result is … something. It wouldn’t fool anyone on close inspection; the red thread stands out too much against the black fabric, but they did it twice, just to be safe.

Sakyo gives it an experimental tug. The red thread doesn’t budge. The overall effect is ugly, but it holds, and Izumi is beaming from ear to ear.

“See, we figured it out together,” she says.

“… Yeah, I guess,” he agrees.

“Dinner’s ready!” Tachibana-san’s voice rings from the kitchen. Izumi inhales the smell of curry wafting in with an exaggerated bliss that Sakyo can’t even begin to fathom, but it’s hard not to smile at that.

He shrugs the jacket on, and they go to eat.

All in all, it’s one of the best nights he’s had in a long time, and one of the best nights he’ll have for a long while after that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my twitter is [@veludoway](http://twitter.com/veludoway)! pls talk to me about sakyoizu
> 
> if you like my fics at all i'd be really grateful if you could [buy me a curry](https://ko-fi.com/piyos)


	2. 15 & 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the ages and school years make sense if izumi is january birth just go with it,... pls

He’s got a ticket to Mankai’s Spring Troupe performance and he’s going to be late because some shit for brains asshole decides to pick a fight at the station. Sakyo _knows_ he has a punchable face—that’s why he never goes out with his glasses on—and the average delinquent underestimates him because he’s skinny, looks young for his age, and dresses like shit.

So he’s not surprised when the guy throws the first punch. He tries to get away, in fact, but the arc of the swing still catches him on the cheek. That’ll bruise. Pissed, he throws his fist right back. The guy dodges, as anticipated, so Sakyo brings his knee up heavily into his opponent’s gut. He’s won at this point, the other guy panting on all fours. It’s over before station security can even be notified. He’s just about to turn to board his train when there’s a harsh tug at the bottom of his jacket.

“I’m not in the mood, so scram,” he snaps, glowering down at the kid.

“I know what school you go to,” sneers the kid, like it’s a terrifying threat and Sakyo should be impressed. He’s the same age as he is, if not younger. Probably came out looking for a fight, for a punchable face, somewhere to displace his unremarkable teenage rage. Well, he found this one.

“I don’t care. Let go.”

The kid smirks and clenches tighter, pulling in a way that threatens to unravel the sloppy stitching still keeping this old gakuran together, so Sakyo’s left with no choice but to kick him viciously in the face.

_“Hey! You can’t do that here!”_

The station security noticed the commotion at last. Sakyo looks back at the door of the train, still open, and makes a run for it as someone starts to run towards _him_. He gets through the doors in time, squeezes past a few disgruntled salarymen, and manages to blend into the crowd of colourful-haired university students gathered near the seats. He waits until whoever may have been half-heartedly chasing him has given up before lowering his shoulders and moving away from the chatter.

He looks up at the time. Almost 7 PM. Might just make it.

If he had a proper cellphone, he could send her a mail, let her know he’s running late. Who is he kidding, though.

Izumi’s the one who invited him anyway, shoved the ticket under the door and begged his mother to let him go. Like he hadn’t been saving up 500 yen coins for the senshuuraku performance since he’d seen the posters the _last_ time he was in Veludo Way.

All he’d managed to say to her was “I’ll think about it.”

… Even _if_ he had a proper cellphone to send her a message with, he doesn’t have her mail address.

He pulls out the flimsy flip-phone that he’d bought second-hand with shady money. It’s been been dropped and knocked about in scuffles. The hinge is coming loose, which he’s tried to fix with electrical tape to _some_ success. The phone works about 60% of the time, in that it won’t take incoming calls half the time but it still sends and receives messages. That’s what this thing is for. Some guy tells him he needs an errand run, Sakyo asks when and where, and once it’s done he gets paid. The numbers and addresses in it are all saved as aliases.

Sakyo won’t allow Tachibana Izumi’s mail address to be in with the rest of them.

It seems to take forever to get to Veludo Station, but it finally does, and he hurries out. The clock at the station reads 7:15, which means the doors are already open and he’s got ten minutes to push through the crowded Veludo Way, find Mankai Theatre, convince the guy at the door to let him in despite his appearance, and then finally find his seat.

And he does it, because at least when he sets his mind to something, that thing gets done. He sits down heavily in his seat as the final members of the audience begin to trickle in. The seat next to his is empty. —She should already be here by now, if she even still wants to sit next to someone like him. A middle school girl and some roughed up high school delinquent… it’s a bad look. He wouldn’t blame her for not showing. And he repeats these justifications himself, beating away any possibility of disappointment, or hope, focusing his stare at the closed curtains on stage.

“Sakyo-nii? You made it!”

Then Izumi appears out of nowhere, sitting down next to him, her cheeks flushed from running. 

“I was talking to Papa. He asked about you! They really miss you being around—” She stops, leaning slightly closer to his face. The lights in the theatre have started to dim, but Izumi has sharp eyes, always has. “You were fighting,” she says. It’s not a question.

“I avoided a fight,” he corrects her. “—It’s nothing.”

“You’re hurt.”

“I’m _fine,_ ” he growls.

As if on queue, the manager starts his spiel about theatre safety and recording devices. The music starts to swell in the background. The show’s about to begin.

“We’ll talk about this later,” she hisses, poking his shoulder as a threat.

The show is _The Wild Swans_ , a modernised take on the fairy tale. A story about a princess whose brothers have been turned into swans, who takes a vow of silence as she weaves the magic clothes that will turn them back into princes from stinging nettles. There are less princes in this version, and the princess is played by a man, per Mankai tradition, but it’s no less a story about perseverance, of love, of devotion to family.

It resonates. It’s not just the acting or the staging. Yukio-san’s directing has that effect, ties it all together. Some of the reviews call him a maestro—not that Sakyo makes a habit of reading those after all this time—and it’s grandiose, but deserved.

Izumi watches with awe, making little noises when something dramatic happens, mouthing the most powerful lines, because she’s her father’s daughter and she loves the theatre, though Sakyo’s never seen her on stage.

When it ends, after the curtain call, and people are rising from their seats to leave, Izumi tugs his sleeve, clearly about to say something about the fighting.

“I don’t need you to worry about me,” he tells her before she can say it. A part of him suspects he’s lying. He pushes that part deep into the back of his subconscious.

“But I’ll worry about you anyway,” she replies, and the plain sincerity of it hits him straight to centre.

He clicks his tongue, getting to his feet. He shoves his hands in his pockets to anchor himself. He’s Furuichi Sakyo, a ruffian, a step above a delinquent, not someone who gets fussed over by teenage girls, even if it’s the girl next door.

“Worry about how you’re getting home instead.”

“I’m meeting Papa backstage. He’s going to drive us.”

“Us?”

“Us. You and me. He agreed already—he wants to talk to you.”

Yukio-san hardly ever goes home these days, Sakyo knows that. He’s grateful for it, because he can barely face the man. He hates the idea of Yukio-san seeing how he is now. There’s no way he’s getting in a car with him.

“… Thanks, but I’m taking the train.”

“Don’t be silly, we live in the same building.”

“Izumi,” he sighs.

“Sakyo-nii,” she says, voice dripping with obvious motive. He stares at her and she stares back, still with those fierce brown eyes.

After a beat he starts leaving the seat and heads out into the aisle.

“Thanks for this, but don’t invite me again. Give Yukio-san my regards.”

He tries to sound cool. He hopes he sounds cool. He doesn’t wait for her response as he heads for the door, and he doesn't look back, not even for another glimpse of the stage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sakyo is not cool and/or happy ever again the end

**Author's Note:**

> my twitter is [@veludoway](http://twitter.com/veludoway)! pls talk to me about sakyoizu
> 
> if you like my fics at all i'd be really grateful if you could [buy me a curry](https://ko-fi.com/piyos)


End file.
